Honeymoon Suite
by Loveedith
Summary: Something unexpected happens to Edith the first morning of her honeymoon with Bertie. The OC is Judith, Sir Anthony's wife.
1. Tapping up Water

It was the morning of the first of January 1926. Lady Edith Pelham had been a married woman for many hours by now. She had enjoyed every moment of it.

She was in the bathroom of their honeymoon suite, tapping up a bath. Bertie was still sleeping, but she planned to wake him up soon and ask him to join her in the tub, to have a bath and perhaps also make love.

Bertie - my husband, she thought. My husband Bertie. The love of my life.

And she couldn't stop smiling about it all.

...

While Edith stood there tapping up water she heard some strange sounds from the room next door to theirs. Or strange - it was rather obvious what they were. The sounds of a man and a woman whispering loudly to each other. A man and a woman getting more and more breathless, obviously deep into the early stages of love-making.

"Yes, yes", Edith heard the woman's voice. "Please! Please my darling husband! Yes, yes, that feels so good!"

"Oh!" the man said, in a very husky voice. "My sweet wife."

Edith blushed at the thought that these two people had perhaps overheard herself and Bertie doing the same thing a few hours ago. Edith knew that she hadn't exactly been silent during the act, letting out several very loud sighs and even one or two small screams of satisfaction...

...

Then something else started worrying her. The man's voice sounded vaguely familiar. She didn't hear very much of it, he was much quiter than the woman, and said a lot less. But Edith knew she had heard that voice somewhere. Many, many times.

The couple seemed to be getting on with their activities, and now nothing was heard from the man except his heavy breating at each thrust, while the woman kept shouting. "Yes, yes, darling, don't stop!"

Then two things happened at almost the same time. Bertie came into the bathroom and put his arms around Edith from behind, lifting her up from the floor in a tight embrace, and Edith realised who the man was.

Sir Anthony Strallan.

...

Bertie was as naked as Edith and she could feel his arousal against her back.

"Shall we try to make love louder than those two?" he whispered into her ear.

Edith had never thought that Bertie could be so flippant. But of course, he didn't know who the people in the next room were.

Unlike herself. Well, she didn't know who the woman was, only that Anthony had married her.

Because she had heard him call her my sweet wife. So the woman must be the second Lady Strallan.

A thing that Edith had wished very much to become herself half a lifetime ago.

...

To Edith's surprise she felt a quick pang of jealosy.

So this woman was good enough for him to marry, even though she herself hadn't been!

"I can't do it in here", she whispered to Bertie although she very much wanted to have him inside her now, to know that he really belonged to her.

"Not when they can hear us", she added.

Then she heard Sir Anthony say, very distinctly, to the woman he had just finished making love to.

"You have given me back my life, Judith."

...

"Please carry me back to bed", Edith whispered to Bertie, quite unwilling to hear anything more.

Bertie put her down on her feet again, turned her around and kissed her softly. Without a word he then lifted her up again in a more comfortable way for both of them and carried her into their bedroom. He put her down on her back in the bed, closing the door to the bathroom safely behind them before he said in a low voice: "I love you, Edith! You are simply wonderful! And we can do this as quietly as you like."

Then he lay down on top of her and started kissing her again.

Back in bed, in her husband's arms, Edith forgot all about Sir Anthony. She even forgot to keep her voice down.

It was only later, when they were both exhausted and happy after their lovemaking, and the hot water in the tub was quite cold and forgotten, that Edith remembered that Anthony was staying with his wife in the next room.

And with the generousity that comes with happiness, Edith felt very satisfied with the fact that Sir Anthony had managed to get his life back without her.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment!

...

I have always thought that this would be the last story I publish, with both Edith and Anthony happy but not with each other. Perhaps this is my last new story, but I have quite a large number of ongoing stories left that I want to complete.


	2. Having Breakfast

"So, shall I call room service or do you want to go down to the dining hall to have breakfast?" Herbert Pelham asked his new wife an hour later, when they were sitting up in bed with their backs leaning at the pillows that were propped up against the headboard.

Edith was terrified. The thought of meeting Sir Anthony and his very loud wife in the dining hall scared her more than she had expected. But of course, that couple would most likely also have breakfast in bed.

Hearing Sir Anthony's voice through the thin walls of the hotel had brought back all the bad memories of her humiliation in Downton church to her. It still hurt, she had to admit. It hurt even though she had now had a fairytale wedding to the man that she loved more than she had ever loved a man before. In the very same church.

She had been very much in love with Anthony, but she had still got over him rather quickly. Jilting someone at the altar is a very effective way to kill love.

Edith had got over her love for Anthony but she had never entirely got over the humiliation.

"Room service, of course", she answered Bertie. "I want to have breakfast in bed. Alone with you, just the two of us."

"Yes, I thought so. I would like that too. Although I wouldn't mind showing all the world what a lucky chap I am."

...

Bertie smiled at Edith again. When he smiled like that she couldn't resist putting her arms around him and kiss him. He kissed her back and after a while, when she felt his tongue inside her mouth, she knew she needed the rest of him also. So she felt with her hand if he was ready - oh yes, he certainly was - and then she quickly slipped over him, putting one foot at each side of his legs, opening herself up to him and slowly sliding down over the whole length of him.

It had taken her less than five minutes to get from a kiss to the full union, but she had still been so wet after what they had done earlier so she hadn't required more. And she had needed him so badly.

Now they just sat there, her chest pressed against his, their arms around each other, his tongue still against her own. Edith was feeling all filled up, waiting in the quiet moment of total belongingness.

They were as close to being one body as two human beings can ever get.

They were almost totally still like that for nearly a minute, only breathing very softly against each other's mouths. It was as if Bertie sensed how much this meant to Edith, how wonderful it was for her to have him like this. Or perhaps he enjoyed this quiet moment just as much as she did.

Bertie hadn't even been given time to touch or taste her breasts before she put him inside her, but he didn't seem to mind. When she started moving a little later he took her buttocks in his hands, helping her to move up and down on him. He was breathing heavily now, obviously very pleased with what she was doing.

For a long while they didn't have time to think about breakfast.

...

"You are so full of surprises", Bertie said with his voice full of tenderness when they were lying close together in bed afterwards. He was kissing and fondling her, for a quick moment Edith thought he wanted to do it again right away. But these were only soft kisses, tender caresses, the cuddly things they had missed being so quick.

After a short while he stopped and said: "Now I'm hungry!"

So Bertie put his pyjama on and rang the bell to room service. Edith wondered if she ought to get out the thin silk nighty that she had brought for her wedding night but hadn't even had time to put on yet. But she enjoyed being naked with Bertie, and she was too languid to get up and unpack it, so she just slid down under the covers.

Besides, she had bought it for _him_ to see her in, not for room service.

...

"There is a thing I have to tell you", Edith told Bertie with a shy smile a little later when they had got their tray and she was pouring up coffee for them.

"Oh, no!" Bertie said with an exaggerated sigh. "Not again. Don't say you have more children hidden away somewhere?"

"Of course not!" Edith said, knowing he didn't believe that. And also that he would willingly have adopted and brought up any number of illegitimate children that she might have.

"That was the only time I slept with a man I wasn't married to", she added, putting her chin up.

Bertie looked at her rather sullenly.

"I happen to know that that isn't true", he said then. "I do hope you remember that too. I would be _very_ disappointed if you didn't."

Edith blushed at the thought of all the things they had done only two weeks ago. And then again a week ago.

"Of course I remember...but that...doesn't count", she said, stumbling on the words and smiling happily at him. "Because we are married _now_."

At that he had to kiss her again, just very softly, careful not to turn the breakfast tray over.

...

"All right, what is it then?" Bertie asked a little later, chewing on his eggs. "Something else you didn't dare to tell me before we were properly married?"

"No, don't worry. It happened just a couple of hours ago."

"How could it have - oh yes, you tapped up a bath and we never used it! And now it is probably cold, and you are sorry about that. Because you think it's a waste."

"Yes, it has to do with that, but just a little bit. That married couple, well, I don't know the woman. But the man was Sir Anthony Strallan..."

It took Bertie some time to take this in. At first he wondered who Anthony Strallan was.

"That was the reason I needed you so badly", Edith added, when Bertie didn't say anything. "I was afraid you would abandon me. If he could abandon me, then so can you."

What was this? Bertie had married Edith, but she was still afraid that he would leave her, it seemed. Had his reaction that morning at Downton hurt her so badly?

"Edith, what do I have to do to prove to you how much I love you? I need you! I could never abandon you, no matter what..."

Then Bertie remembered. Sir Anthony Strallan was the man who had jilted Edith at the altar.

"Shall I go over there and punch him on his nose?" he offered. "He has no right to enjoy himself so much after treating you so abominably."

Edith smiled at the thought. Bertie was a remarkable man, but of course she knew he wouldn't do something like that. But at least she knew she had found a champion in him. Someone who was always on her side.

"Don't be ridiculous. I have never seen you hit anyone, it is so much against your nature", she said. "I don't think I've ever met a person less aggressive than you are. And I'm certain that if you would ever hit anyone you wouldn't start with a man who is more than twenty years your senior and only has the use of one of his arms."

"Point taken", Bertie said. "I'll try to stay at my best behaviour."

"I'm sure his wife would be rather surprised if you did it, though", Edith said with an inscrutable smile. She didn't know the woman at all but she was rather certain that she could never like her.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! Thank you for the nice comments to last chapter! Please leave a comment!

...

I did publish a different chapter 2 some weeks ago, but I took that away after some hours' of thinking and it won't come back. I didn't like it, and have thrown most of it away.


	3. In the Library

After Sir Anthony left Lady Edith by the altar, he was certain he would never find love again. He didn't even know if he _wanted_ to find love again - not if it was going to end like it had done that time.

So he kept to himself back at Locksley or in his London house. He stayed away from places where he risked meeting anybody he knew.

 **...**

A couple of years after his failed wedding, Sir Anthony met Judith Jones for the first time.

She was a war widow, living on a meagre pension, supporting herself and her little son as a librarian in York.

Anthony had entered the library more or less by chance. He had been feeling lonely, sitting in his own library, meeting no one but his servants. So he had been driving to York just to be able to look at people. He felt the need to see that there was still a world outside Locksley.

He didn't really need a public library, he had books enough in his own home and if he wanted any new ones he simply bought them. But he had felt lonely wandering around York, and then it had started raining when he was just outside the library, so he had gone in to sit for a while until the rain stopped.

He had been enchanted by the tall and darkhaired librarian from the moment he first set eyes on her. So he asked her if he could get a library card, and after that he started to come there every week. After going there for a couple of months, he finally asked her out for a cup of tea, and she said yes.

The rest was, as they say, history.

 **...**

It took Anthony more than a year of courting until he dared to ask Judith to marry him.

Before he proposed to her he had told her all about Edith, and how horribly he had treated her. Judith had been totally understanding.

...

There were so many things that were better and easier with Judith than they had been with Edith. He felt much more on equal terms with her.

Judith had no relatives, except her married sister and her sister's family. She had no parents or grandparents who could object to their marriage. And Judith's sister was very supportive, thinking that Sir Anthony was a wonderful catch.

Judith didn't have any high rank, or indeed any rank at all.

Judith was almost ten years older - ten years older than Edith that is. So Anthony himself didn't feel at all as much an old codger as he had done with Edith.

Judith was 43, so perhaps it was too late for children although Sir Anthony's own mother had been 46 when he himself was born. But it didn't matter so much either. Judith already had a little boy, so Anthony wouldn't be denying her the pleasure of motherhood, as he had been afraid of doing to Edith.

Judith was impressed by Locksley. She had found it unbelievably big, almost like a castle. Edith - however much she had liked his library - well, he knew she was used to even grander circumstances than he could offer her.

Judith was not a virgin, like Edith had been, or at least, like he had _thought_ she had been. Sir Anthony was brought up in a time when it was impossible for a man even to try to discuss the details of human reproduction with his bride to be. That was something her mother was supposed to tell her on the night before the wedding.

Anthony cringed at the thought of Cora telling Edith what to expect from him after they were married.

But with Judith it was easy to talk about those things. She was a widow, she had a child, he could speak freely about his longings and his doubts about his own abilities. This was a woman who had loved before and wanted to do it again. It had both scared him and thrilled him to find that out. She had been very reassuring, and after that the date of their wedding was set. New Years Eve it would be.

Judith and Anthony had a very simple wedding. No guests, only the two of them at the registrar's office.

So Edith and Anthony got married on the same day, albeit not to each other.

...

There was one last thing that spoke in favour of Judith - and Anthony told himself that this was not very important, because he was a bit ashamed of it. Edith was beautiful in her own way, but Judith was more his type when it came to the looks of a woman. Dark hair, slender body, calm and self-controlled behaviour...

Like Maud had been. Like Consuelo Vanderbilt was. And yes - he had to admit it, though Edith would have hated him for it - like Mary Crawley was.

...

Edith and the way he had treated her had remained a sour spot in Anthony's new happy life. He had seen that she had been a writer and the manager of a magazine, but there had still been no news of any marriage, so most likely she was still a spinster and a virgin.

And since she must be well over 30 by now there was probably very scant hope that it would ever change.

...

But in his own happiness with Judith that blissful wedding night he had totally forgotten about Edith.

They sat there together in the bathtube for a long time, surrounded by the hot water, totally happy and relaxed.

When making love to Judith he had hardly noticed his injury. He hadn't felt at all like a cripple, he hadn't even had time to think about his useless arm.

And he was quite certain that his darling wife had enjoyed it too.

...

If Sir Anthony had known that Lady Edith Crawley and her new husband had overheard part of their activities, he would have felt very embarrassed. Very embarrassed indeed.

So in many ways it was lucky he didn't know.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! Thank you for the nice comments to last chapter, more than a year ago!


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